11th Street Shelter Shenanigans!

[seismic_shockwave]

WHO: Xavier's students
WHERE: 11th Street Shelter
WHAT: Helping out, making a difference!
WHEN: Early afternoon on Sunday
RATING: PG to PG-13

It'd been a relatively uneventful trip into the city, though things were a bit slower on the road due to heavier-than-usual maintenence, it taking nearly an hour to get into the core of the city. It had been agreed upon to take a quick lunch stop at a burger place along the road- on the principle that it was probably best not to eat the shelter's food. Once they'd got to the shelter, they had all immediately been put to work serving food, with a lunch time that ran from 12 to 2, though hot coffee, cookies and sandwiches were available at any time during the day. Tying back her hair so it wouldn't get into the soup, Kayla started doling out the day's food. If it was needed, people would be sent doing other tasks, such as preparing beds for those who needed them or cleaning up. Later on in the afternoon, they'd be put to work sorting food for the food bank, or clothing to give to those who needed it.

But right now, their help was needed the most in the kitchen, making sandwiches and coffee, putting out cookies and doling out the soup of the day (beef noodle) from giant pots. Kayla paused for a moment to wipe her brow- it was hot in the kitchen and there were a lot of people to serve during lunch hour. Hopefully the soup wouldn't run out before the people in the lines had all been fed ... a lot of soup had been made, but some days it was hard to feed everyone that needed it. Worse came to worse, they'd have to dip into the food bank supplies and start cooking up canned soups. Hardly an ideal circumstance, but better than turning anyone away.

The clientele were varied, with all manner of appearances and backstories. While most mutants could more or less pass for human, most of the mutants who came to 11th Street had some form of inconvenient or visible mutation- those who didn't could often find either jobs or assistance from other agencies. The mutations had led to some interesting consequences- one woman who didn't have functioning vocal cords but minor telepathic abilities could only communicate through telepathy- and several of the mutants at the shelter had higher-than-average caloric needs that were also a drain on food supplies. Clothing had to be replaced as powers accidents resulted in the destruciton of what was sometimes their only outfit of decent clothes.

Kayla turned to give an encouraging smile to the person next to her, as she ladled out another serving of soup into a bowl to a young woman covered in brilliant, multicoloured feathers.

"Lunch rush is almost over. Then we get to work sorting food, clothing and other supplies." 

The plan was to be there all afternoon.

Comments

[iced_cherub]

Bobbi glanced at Rose a moment. "The pantry door's closed though..." Yep, the kid was impressed.

[seismic_shockwave]

"Wow ... good job." Kayla whistled lowly, and then smiled a little. "I think we might keep you here. Mice are a continual problem. We don't have enough storage for all the food we get, so it's hard to keep things secure." She sighed and ladled out a last few bowls of soup. She noticed Stephanie coming in, looking very obviously not of this place, but paid it little mind.

"All right. We should probably make our way to the back. We'll be making food hampers. Two pastas, one thing of pasta sauce, two or three cans of vegetables, a can of fruit, and some meat. I think we'll be able to put in maybe ten potatoes in each bag too. Sunday we also give out milk. Single people and couples get one carton, families usually get two."

[wild_child]

Rose smirked proudly. "'s what I do," she said.

She tossed off a salute. "Got it."

[iced_cherub]

Bobbi nodded heading to the next area. She was askedto be a runner for the others getting things they needed, which didn't bother her at least. The tables were a little tall for her to work at without a stool.

[seismic_shockwave]

Well, truth be told, Kayla wasn't very tall either and she sometimes had to end up on tiptoes. Fortunately, she'd managed to find a tall enough chair. She started by showing the others how to assemble a bag most quickly- which was important because they went through a lot of them. Once they got started, it wasn't hard to make them at a decent clip.

"If any cans are really obviously dented, don't put them in. We've already had stuff checked, so nothing should be expired." She looked around at the pile. "If there's kinda odd stuff, like hearts of palm or canned escargot, we usually put them in as an "extra". Not as the main part. Looks like we'll be doing that, actually."

[wild_child]

She was taller than Bobbi, at least, but slightly shorter than Kayla. Not that she'd ever let that stop her.

Rose snickered. "Snails? Still can't believe people eat those things."

But getting to work was pretty easy. Rose had been raised to do the job right and to do the job quickly.

[iced_cherub]

"I've eaten them before. I'll pass on it again though." Hey her 'parentbots' were higher end middle class and occasionally she was dragged to company dinners.

Handing over some more bags as they needed it.

[seismic_shockwave]

It was a weird world indeed where Kayla was the tall one.

"I didn't really mind them when I tried `em, but they're not high on my list of must-have foods." Her own family had been pretty comparable in status. They'd occasionally gone to some pretty high end restaurants, like 529 Wellington or Dubrovnik.

She'd done this enough that she could do it pretty quickly. "If we get done with this quickly enough, we can take a bit of time to go and mingle with the folks here. Sometimes they need a decent conversation and someone to listen to them just as much as the food hampers or clothes."

[wild_child]

"Hey, I'll eat just about anything. Gator. Deer. Rabbit. Grubs, if I gotta."

She kept working while she talked. "Makes sense."

[iced_cherub]

"But rabbits are cute," Rose get a pout as Bobbi puts some things up on the table.

[seismic_shockwave]

"Cute, yes. But also plentiful and edible." Though to be honest, the one time her parents had cooked rabbit, little Kayla had found out and wailed the rest of the evening. "See that guy over there talking to the prep girl? Jeremiah. He's the guy in charge, kinda. Nice guy. Comes from Magneto's little Mutant Kingdom in Antarctica, apparently."

[wild_child]

"He's datin' a friend of mine, actually," Rose said. "Not nearly as nutso as his dad neither."

"And rabbit's good eatin'. Ya'd be surprised what ya'll eat, when yer out in the middle o' nowhere."

[iced_cherub]

"Okay in the middle of no where I'll try it, but only if we can't catch fish. They're not as cute." She giggled.

[seismic_shockwave]

Kayla kinda wanted to keep Bobbi. Honestly, she'd never really had a younger sister, just a bunch of brothers and they all thought she was destined to eternal hellfire anyway.

"Well, we'll make sure that we pack enough food on our next camping trip that we don't need to worry about hunting rabbits." She smiled at Bobbi.

"Yeah? Though the way that Jeremiah would talk about Magneto, he didn't seem insane at all. Actually, the idea of a mutant country that's just far away from other folks is kinda cool. Not my thing, though. Figure we gotta learn to live together somehow, or we're all royally fucked anyway."

[wild_child]

Okay, Bobbi was pretty cute, in a little kid sort of way.

"Hey, half the fun of campin' is catchin' yer own food," Rose said.

[iced_cherub]

She's not trying to be cute though!

"I've only been camping twice. Summer camps both times, so when we went fishing it was only catch and release. But it was fun."

She watched the others a moment and noted when Brooke entered. She'd behave, but really, who was Brooke kidding, dressing up like that here?

[seismic_shockwave]

See, that was the thing. Kayla didn't think Bobbi meant to be adorable, it just seemed to be a state of being.

"I used to go camping sometimes. It was pretty fun. We'd never hunt of course, being fancypants city folk. But we'd do some fishing on Lake Winnipeg. Nothing like fried pickerel you just caught an hour ago with some new potatoes." Her smile went a little wan, though. She'd never go camping with her family ever again. She shook her head a bit, getting back to the here and now.

"I think we're pretty much done here. And only one can of eels this time. Let's go out and talk to some of the folks." Huh. Who had that been talking to Jeremiah. With formal-looking papers. She frowned a bit. Probably some hotshot developer trying to buy it out.

[wild_child]

"Fishin' counts," Rose informed Kayla. "Hmm."

She gave something some thought. "Girls' campin' trip when th' Snow Globe here is off punishment?"

[iced_cherub]

"I liked snow demon better." She mock pouted at her roommate.

"And I shouldn't be grounded that much longer. I mean really, all I did was ruined her ugly and way over priced shoes."

[seismic_shockwave]

"Snow Demon would also make a fucking sweet band name. Just saying." Kayla grinned. "And you'd better not be. Who cares about some stupid shoes?"

A camping trip sounded kinda fun, actually. It'd been awhile since Kayla had really had a chance to go on an excursion with friends. The unspoken part of that, of course, was that it'd been awhile since Kayla had even had really good friends.

"So basically, hell yes. We should do this camping trip thing ASAP."

[wild_child]

Rose grinned wickedly. "Wish I'd been there to see that, Snow Globe," she told Bobbi. "I vote we take her with us."

She grinned a little more. "Whether she wants to or not."

[iced_cherub]

Bobbi nodded. "It would."

"I'll admit it was fun." She grinned at Rose and Kayla both. "Oh great she'll complain the whole time. Planning tents? Or we going to have a cabin?"

[seismic_shockwave]

"Unless Rose's dad has a cabin, I imagine we'd have to do tents ..." Well, he probably did have a cabin, but whether they could use it or not was another issue entirely.

She grinned. "I'm totally down for taking Princess over there on a trip. I mean, we'd be doing her a service, right? Camping builds character." She nodded.

[wild_child]

Rose considered something. "Tents, definitely."

A thought nagged at her. "Technically, I'm not allowed to "take" Brooke camping without asking her. ...But no one said she had to be awake to hear me ask."

[iced_cherub]

"We didn't hear you say that!" She yelped in a harsh whisper to Rose. "Because then we'd get into trouble if we knew right."

She grinned though. She'd be cool with trying it.